From Lusaka airport, you’ll fly one hour by charter plane to Lower Zambezi National Park where you’ll transfer to Chula Island Camp along the Zambezi River’s edge. Settle into your luxury safari tent overlooking the river. You’ll wake here each morning to the breathtaking sight of mist rising off the Zambezi as dawn breaks.

Each day you’ll explore the park’s verdant forests and flood plains with your private guide. Watch elephants feeding belly-deep in the river and buffalo herds moving like armies through the winterthorn groves. Lions often hunt along the floodplains at dusk, leopards recline in mahogany tree branches, and wild dog packs traverse this valley.

You’ll have the chance to explore the area by canoe. Paddle silently past hippos wading in the river channels, observe elephants drinking, and watch carmine bee-eaters darting from their riverbank burrows. This unique perspective creates a connection to nature that is impossible to experience from a vehicle.

Your dinners will be spent under the stars, lanterns creating an Out of Africa atmosphere as the Zambezi flows past and the African night chorus performs around you.

After breakfast, fly 1.5 hours northeast to North Luangwa National Park – one of Africa’s last genuinely wild places with no permanent roads and extremely limited accommodation. Transfer to Kutandala Camp, a collection of en-suite bush tents set up on the banks of the Mwaleshi River. This is rustic in the best sense.

The next two days will be a profound rewilding experience as you connect to the energy of the land, traversing it on foot by day. Track buffalo herds, approach elephant bulls with calculated caution, and learn to read the bush through scat, spoor, and animal behaviour. Your guide’s outstanding knowledge makes each experience a masterclass in African ecology.

Your guide may suggest a night out in a simple fly-camp deeper in the wilderness – sleeping under mosquito nets in the open, without tent walls between you and the wild. With or without this experience, your time in the wilds of North Luangwa will stay with you always, a privilege to have walked its valleys.

You’ll catch a charter flight bound west (1.5 hours) to Kafue National Park, Zambia’s oldest and largest park, and host to animals found nowhere else in Zambia. You’ll transfer to your Ntemwa-Busanga Camp, a handful of classic thatched chalets located in the northern Busanga Plains.

Each year this area comes into flood during the rainy season and then drains through the dry season, creating a 750-square-kilometre grassland paradise – Kafue’s crown jewel. You’ll likely see vast herds of puku and lechwe bounding through shallow water, zebra, wildebeest, and the predators that follow them, all spectacularly adapted to life in these wetlands.

The birdlife here is exceptional: crowned cranes, saddle-billed storks, and raptors including martial eagles and bateleurs. If water levels permit (July-September), your camp might offer excursions in specialised “swamp vehicles” or even boat trips on the Lufupa River channels. Your evening sundowners with views across the plains, bathed in golden light, highlight Kafue’s grandeur.

On your final day, you’ll fly to Lusaka for your onward international flight.